Pages

Friday, October 16, 2009

Great weather for an endurance ride, if you're a duck. On second thought, I didn't see any ducks anywhere around. Mid-40's and dumping rain most of the morning, then rain and wind, then light rain and wind, then mist and wind, more rain, more wind, and colder. By noon the officials had decided to shorten the 100-mile ride to 75 miles. Slick course with deep mud, that only got slicker and deeper as the day wore on.

One of those days that this wimpy endurance rider was glad she was not riding.

Lots of blankets in the vet gate

On people too

This little river at the out gate was not there yesterday.

Jeremy, riding Sir Smith, is cold...

but they head out on Loop 3.

Valerie Kanavy, twice former World Champion, heads out on loop 2 with LM Parys. The mare vetted out lame after loop 2 - they'd slipped and fallen on a road.

One of my heroes, Jan Worthington (she's 69) and her cool horse Golden Lightning (Leon), going out on loop 3.

How do you cool a hot horse down on a cold wet windy day? There's a fine line between cooling him down while keeping him warm, and crossing that line to where he's too cold. Here they're putting water on his neck and shoulders, but you can see his tail is clamped to his butt.

Here they're pouring water all over him (and it's cold water, not warm) - neck, shoulders, back, butt. You risk causing the horse to cramp up, pouring cold water on his back and butt. A lot of horses did cramp up behind and were pulled.